Heart / Vip Community Mental Health Center Inc (VIP)

Vip's programs are aimed at treating victims of violence, with a specific focus on high-risk children and youth who have been abused and who are either at risk for or in the foster care systems as well as for those who are transitioning out of dcfs supervision. While Vip sees over 60% of children going into foster care in los angeles, the agency also provides much needed medical and Mental Health support to all vulnerable populations, including lgbtq+ youth, commercially sexually exploited children, pregnant and parenting teens, victims of sexual assault or family violence, and victims of elder abuse. Our medical child abuse program operates 24/7 while our Community Mental Health Center operates monday- thursday 8am to 8pm and friday 8am to 6pm. No other program in los angeles has the same geographic scope, breadth of population, or programmatic experience. We remain the only service provider that is directly integrated with a major medical Center, lac+usc medical Center, and one of the few Mental Health service providers for children in east los angeles. During the height of the pandemic, Vip created a Mental Health urgent care system that mimics the medical/forensic hub of services that we have had for years. This Mental Health Center was focused on information from the department of children and family services about isolated families with serious Mental Health challenges and case management needs. Our therapists received over hundreds of referrals that were triaged, assessed, and properly linked to services. Additionally, through our forensic program we were able to provide Mental Health assessments to more than 2,500 children and families and our case managers worked very diligently in providing acute case management due to housing challenges, food insecurity, and other Community supports. The program was a success because Vip was able to intervene and prevent children and youth from entering foster care and ensured that these families were visible. We are also proud to share that with the high need of Mental Health services we provided ongoing Mental Health support to 1,200 children and youth through our Community, schools, and Center. Lastly, another accomplishment was the ability to provide tutoring services to our clients in a time when they needed most. Many children academically fell behind during the pandemic and needed extra support to catch up and not make the academic gap larger. Our volunteers were vital in providing the extra support by providing over 4,000 hours of volunteer work including mentoring, tutoring, and childcare. We continue to host a weekly food distribution in partnership with la dream Center that has been of great support to the Community.